This Much I Know Is True
by aThousandOceans
Summary: Justice. It will come in his own way, with his hands as the instruments of bloodlure.
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

_"Am I pretty, Daddy?" she twirled, in her new blue gown. Smiling._

I had to return the smile as I looked at my daughter. God, she looked so much like her mother. Brown puppy eyes. The exaggerated forehead, and the brown hair which curled near the scalp. Seven years old, and I'm seeing Jaclyn in her already.

"Beautiful," I said, scooping her, blue dress and all, onto my lap. It was just me and her now - an awkward, middle-aged ex-knight, skin littered with battlescars, and a beautiful, naive seven year old, deprived of a mother. She smelled of mastela fruit, I kissed her hair. I hugged her tight, like I thought I'd lose her if I don't.

"I love you, dad," she said.

Curtains can only hold so much light before they overflow and spill brightness into the room. I wake up, morning evident on my breath. I stretch. Empty pillow on my right. She's gone, I know. Jaclyn's gone and forever dead. Get used to a half-filled mattress, making breakfast for you and the kid.

I enter our kitchen. Small, but then again, it's just an old man and a youngster living here. Prontera thought we didn't need more, and, frankly, we didn't. The city's treasury provided for everything now, me being an ex-knight and all, badge of courage, 36 years of service certificate, veteran status. There was a bouquet on the table, flowers from the Fountain in the middle of the city picked by Miki yesterday, probably under the "Don't Pick the Flowers" sign.

I grab apples, cheese. Cut them in quarters with the only knife in the house. The cheese yellow on the fleshy meat of the apples. Eight slices on the plate. Milk in a cup, for Miki. I walk over to Miki's room, knock on the open door. She never liked the doors closed. I told her it was safe, no monster would eat her. She still complained that monsters would eat her brains, until a few weeks ago when a neighbor's kid told her she had no brains to eat.

"Miki," I said, "Miki. Breakfast, sweetheart."

I watched her, back facing me on her bed. She was getting to tall for it. A new bed should go into my budget. Her little toes were almost at the end of the mattress, I smiled. I was acting retarded, so fatherlike. Stereotypical, you might say, proud of my daughter's height. Blah.

I sat behind her on the bed, lay my big hand on her shoulder. "Mikiiiiiiii, get up. Come on."

I rolled her to face up, and my tongue dried. I felt blood drain from my face, as I saw a dagger on her forehead.

Between the wooden hilt and her forehead, a parchment lay. On it, soft stains of her blood was, along with the words: "Love, A."

Everything my eyes saw turned the color red, the color of her blood. My little girl, assasinated in my house, during the night. Coward.

"Love, A." A. Asshole.

Whoever did this wanted to hurt me more than physically. And, by God, did he succeed. He should've killed me, though. Because from me, no tears would be shed for Miki. Only blood. 

This much I know is true.


	2. Chapter One

**_PART ONE: If your right hand causes you to sin._**

A long shadow was cast on her bed, rippling over my thighs, onto her pale skin. A voice that hissed, a snake's voice, echoed in the room.

"I must say, I did a hell of a job. See how clean everything is, honey," the silhoutte, leaning on the doorway, teased. A woman's figue. I could tell, a very, very seductive woman. "No blood on her sheets," she whispered, "she didn't even scream. Dumb girl. Just like her mother."

I couldn't see her. She was a shadow in the doorway, brilliant light in the background creating halos in my vision. Nothing but breasts, hair, and an ass that could spark a religion. I sensed the metallic twang of blood on her hands, I could see her cover Miki's lips as she rested the dagger's tip on her forehead. In my imagination she whispered something cruel to a shocked seven-year-old. _You deserve this, little one,_ or _a gift from me and your daddy._ Then I saw the blade pierce her skull, a soft spray of red lifting between her eyes, stark red, red, red in the shadows of a black night, only thing radiating light were eyes, a pair from the assasin, and a pair from my daughter. Eyes stolen from her mother. This bitch killed Jaclyn all over again.

"Seriously, though, it was too easy, sugar," her pronunciation of sugar listless, leaving the "r" in the end hanging. Sugah. Words rolled in her mouth, poisonous, toxic words that hit you like a hammer and remained in your bloodstream like a parasite, eating away at your life. "A little girl. Ugh."

I wanted to rise from the bed, stop her tease, but experience demanded patience. The slivers of light bouncing along her belt proved her inventory of twin daggers, curved at the tip, on both of her sides. Twenty years ago I would've jumped, grabbed her daggers, held them to her throat and demanded who the hell "A" was. Who sent her. She would scream and surrender in terror, then I'd cut her neck anyway, stab her in the eye, I'd carve "Love, Regan" on her breasts and thrown her back to her employer, cut fingers in her mouth.

But I looked at her, studied her. She couldn't even be nineteen, and I knew myself, balding, green veins on my hands, back spasms while picking up Miki's toys. She probably still had baby teeth. If someone sent her, she'd be damn good. I haven't fought in so long, I'd be rusty, she'd cut my chest open like she already has and stab at my beating heart before I could lift my hands in retaliation.

So I sat there, taking her abuse. Her words hit me like a stampede of goats, I was on the ground, hooves bearing the words "just like her mother" on my face.

"So." I said, cloaked in a facade that appeared as if I wasn't sodomizing her with her daggers where she stood.

"So. What do you think?" she asked, from her doorway sanctuary. "I have to kill you now. I had to do the brat first. It was in the contract. You can use the knife on your kid's head," she said, "just to be fair. I mean, you've got to be at least sixty. You might just give yourself a chance if you had a weapon."

Then she added, "but I doubt it." And her daggers came unsheathed, one in each hand. There was a whir, she spun the daggers in her fingers in a circle. I couldn't do that.

My fingers crawled around the dagger's hilt, I had some training with this, lightweight, backup weapons that Prontera outfitted you with, for close combat. But my training was what, 40 years ago? I closed my eyes as I pulled the blade, the rippling of blood from Miki's forehead filling my ears.

I stood up, my weapon in my right hand, I was testing its weight. I knew what body parts to attack, to cut, to maximize damage and blood loss, but I wasn't going for those. This assasin would die a slow, lingering death. I'd cut her tongue and ears out, chop off her hair from her scalp. I won't cut any major arteries, not the one behind the ankle or the one in her neck, or the one in her elbow. She was going to suffer. I'd pierce her liver then break the blade off, then I'd wrap her in a quilt, her head in a bucket, and hang her upside down to drown in her own blood and bile.

She spat on both her knives, her spit the venom enchanting her weapons. She took a pose, and I saw her body as she stepped into the light. What a beautiful woman.

I dropped my blade, and she reacted as I hope she would. She was shocked, and cocked her head back, about to tease, to say something to provoke me, to piss me off, like "can't carry your own daggers? You're that old?".

When I saw her head tilt back, I jumped forward and my fist landed in her face. Her blood immediately covered my right hand, and she was clawing at the floor, face covered in the same, nails scratching the ground looking for her daggers. She was screaming. I liked it. My little Miki didn't scream, now this assasin was screaming for her.

I picked her up by her hair, her "you bastard" shouts filling the room. I grabbed her head, placed my thumb over her eye. A crunching sound, and she was half blind.

"Who sent you?" I asked, my words hitting her like a stampede of goats.


	3. Chapter Two

**_Part Two: Father, why have you forsaken me._**

I had her now, controlled my daughter's murderer, with a thumb where her eye used to be. Her face was a bloody mess, first getting acquainted with my fist, then just my thumb. I wouldn't let go, hell, I wanted some answers.

"Who sent you?" I asked, my words hitting her like a stampede of goats.

"Bastard. I'll kill you, you bastard, like I killed your little brat," she smirked, half my hand covering her face, blood covering the other half.

"Fine. You just had to make it harder on yourself, didn't you?" I replied. And what I did next felt oh-so-goddamn-good. My hand, her head a ball in it, slammed her, temple first, into Miki's wall, leaving a splash-patterned coloring of blood on the wall, rippling with the new crack.

"Aagh, that's all you've got, old man?" she teased, her blood bubbling audibly from her lips. What a tough bitch. I was going to enjoy this. I had her head in my left hand, and both her arms in my right.

I dragged her to the kitchen. A spare tablecloth went around her body, I tied in so she looked like a mummy from under her shoulders. The green tablecloth went around, around, wrapping around her hands behind her back, covering her breasts, legs, and ass. To me, she looked like a living punching bag. I knotted it and let my fist fly to her again, this time it felt a lot better. She slammed on the floor, and spat out blood.

I crouched just in front of her face, I was getting tired. Sixty-three year olds weren't made for this kind of horseplay. "Just tell me who. You'll live," I sighed, and for a split second meaning it. "Just a name. Who the hell's 'A'?"

More spitting of blood. "Not in this life, bastard."

I rolled my eyes, and got up. I scanned the kitchen for an instrument of pain. The knife I used for breakfast... too small. The plate with apples and cheese... too worthy to be broken. The table. Aha.

I pulled the table over her. She was shadowed by the table now. I picked up the plate and Miki's milk, moved them to the counter. I asked her for a name one more time, followed by another rebellious denial. I smiled as I lifted the edge of the table opposite her head, and carefully placed the lowering edge on her neck. Then I balanced the table in a way that it rested on her throat, and its two legs that lay almost parallel to the kitchen floor.

"Who?" I said, almost wanting her not to answer.

She cussed at me.

I picked up a chair, and slammed it on the high edge of the table. The energy from the chair traveled through the table's edge, flowed down the tabletop, and ended with the full force falling on her throat. She looked like a geyser of red blood.

She coughed, and couldn't stop coughing. "Adrea," she managed to say, in between horrified coughs. I couldn't imagine what 'pain in the neck' she must be going through right now.

"Adrea? The priest?" I asked. What the hell.

Coughing. "Rubalkubara. He gave me a million for some of your daughter's blood, and yours," her reply was more like a wheeze, but it was cystal clear to me.

Adrea Rubalkubara. Love, "A". Sorry, father, but I have sinned.

What the hell, I thought again. A high priest of Prontera, sending out assasins to little girls. He must've forgotten I was an ex-knight. I knew what war meant. He didn't. All he knew was peace, love, the Bible.

"You'd better be telling the truth, assasin," I told her, and lifted the table from her throat.

"I am," she said, and I believed her. She wouldn't lie in between coughs like that. She'd be as honest as God himself.

"Good," I replied, "because I don't want you to go to hell with a stupid lie."

Her horrified _eye_ stared at me as I knelt over her, with a knife. A muffled scream stabbed at the air like little knives, as I used a buther's knife on her neck. Hell, if I wanted a meeting with Rubalkubara, I needed an invitation. Her head was as good as any.


	4. Chapter Three

**_Part Three: And he bore the mark of the beast on his forehead._**

This won't take long, I promised my daughter, sitting on her bed. I wrapped my beautiful Miki in her blanket, tried not to cry. This old heart can't take it.

I remember it as clear as your eyes, Miki - the doctor in the hallway of Prontera's medical center, seven and a half years ago, a shadow that came full in the hall's dim candlelight. The doctor telling me your mama was having a hard time, it wasn't routine labor, the baby meant trouble. Telling me to pick, your mama or you. I said both. The doctor said it was impossible, a sacrifice had to be made. I said both. He again said no can do, he knows it's hard, but I had to make a choice. I punched him, sent him flying halfway across the candlelit hall. I said both, dammit.

After the whole staff calmed me down, I told the doctor to ask your mama. He didn't show up, until eight hours later, with a bundle wrapped in white linen around his arms. It was the happiest and saddest memory of my life, holding my wife's heritage, legacy, in my arms, a sweet little thing, the product of our love.

You will be buried like your mama. Forget the scar on your head. I'll put a flower on it, cover that cut. One of the flowers you kept picking from the Town Center fountain. The big white one that smelled like honey. From under the "Don't Pick The Flowers" sign. Only our closest friends will be there, yes, even that neighbor's kid with the snotty nose who told you you had no brains to eat.

I'd better get used to an empty house now, not just an empty bed. Miki, I promise you, if Rubalkubara is really behind this, then his God better save him, because nothing on this plane of existence sure will.

I wrapped Miki in her bedsheet. I carried the assasin's head in a savage-hide bag, tied it around my back. I carried my daughter's cold, still body out the door. Fresh air hit my face. It felt good. People on the streets stared at me, bloodied from the fight, reeking of death, carrying a human-shaped bedspread. I didn't care. Not anymore.

I knocked at Jett's house, a neighbor, old friend from the service. His wife opened the door. "Regan. Good... uhm... morning," she said, her eyes studying Miki's outline evident on the bedsheet. She knew it was a body, either a really short midget, or a kid. She was at a loss for words, especially when the fact that I was covered in blood registered in her head. "Breakfast? We were just going to... uh... I think you're looking for Jett. Jett, honey, it's Regan. Come in, and make yourself..." she said, then swallowed her words. "You can leave your... package... I'll call Jett."

She disappeared into her living room, and I could hear whispers in the dining room. Their house was nice, of course, Jett had more of a pension then I did from his term with the Pronteran Squad, he had two kids, both Miki's playmates, Red and Rina. He also had a wife, Kielle, he had the whole caboose, flowerbeds, a wine collection, and all that shit.

Jett came into the living room, where I stood, awkward, a head in a bag behind my back and a dead girl, wrapped in her sheets, weighing like a lifetime of misery in my arms. The stupidity of how I looked fell on me right there, double the weight of that same lifetime of misery.

"Don't you bring any shit into my house, Regan. Don't you dare, dammit, I don't want.." he came, not stopping in his stride, long, sure steps that covered the whole living room in the span of time it took him to say that sentence.

"Take care of my daughter, Jett," authority clear in my voice, "that's an order."

It's like a light came on in his head, he suddenly understood. His legs, which were a foot apart, slid together, and he stood, erect. A right hand showed me the salute. We weren't knights anymore, but there would always be that respect I demanded from my old squad. I gave him my Miki, the transference became heavy, almost like my heart was the one exchanging hands. The reason I didn't kill myself the last seven years has now found her finality in the solace of a dagger right between her eyes.

"Understood, sir," Jett said. "Do what you have to do."

I will, Jett. I will, Miki.

I turned the street, headed for the Pronteran slums. Commercial district. Half an hour later, the little adobe houses and gravel roads with mastela shrubs turned to gray brick and grass growing out of cement cobblestone. A series of brothels and bars, and I found the place I was looking for. A whorehouse that doubled as a drinking joint, which was a front for bounty hunters and mercenaries to be hired, looking for a little blood money.

The door creaked open. In the right corner, a man had his fingers between a whore's legs, kneading the flesh in between her thighs, moans radiating from her. I stepped in, the sick scent of commercialized, advertised love stung my nose. I walk towards the bar, where a hairy, fat, ape of a bartender attended to me.

"Uh. You don't belong here, knight," the ape told me, "but your zeny is still zeny. Some ale?" he offered, and spat into his hands, rubbing them together.

I looked into his eyes, and told him, "No. Get me Leno."

He smirked at me. Leno has built a reputation of going for the most elusive contracts, the ones that really paid off, and delivering. A rogue who mastered the bow and blade, who crept into houses and silently slipped poisons into the contract's lips. Then he cashed in the next morning, when the news of the death reached his employer. He'd patiently await the next job, another layer on his calloused heart formed.

A voice behind me. "How much, knight?"

I didn't turn to face him. No need. I knew who it was. "Don't you even care who, Leno?"

"They're all the same. Zeny in my pockets. Food for the kids," came the arrogant voice of a worthy owner.

Now I spun the chair around, angled in a way that I can rest my head on my fist, which was on the bar counter. "The High Priest. Rubalkubara. I'm too old to go it alone," I said, trying to sound arrogant myself.

He studied me, blood stains on my fist, shirt, shoes. "I work alone, old man," he said, further solidifying his iron man demeanor.

Not on this one you don't. "This one's as personal as it gets, Leno. And you're not going to have the pleasure all to yourself," I bantered back. I was enjoying the macho man one-upping between us, in this dirty bar, sex in the background.

His eyes focused on me, but not quite. Like he was looking for a crack in my resolve. "It's your suicide, old man. But, fine," he said, in a tone that hinted sarcasm. He blew on his nails, like a woman. "And I get how much?"

I knew he'd ask that. 

"All the power in the world," I said, "and the adventure of a goddamn lifetime."

I saw him give a half-smile, and I knew I just bought myself the best hitman in all of Midgard. You've got quality on your side, Miki. Don't worry. Daddy's got you covered.


	5. Chapter Four

**_Part Four: Thirty pieces of silver._**

We talked in that bar, verbal agreement stronger than any written contract. Leno looked unattentive, eyes scanning the room every second, but I knew he liked the idea of free killing. Just the spilling of blood, no monetary knots holding him down. It took his "hitman" facade and ripped at it like that Easter veil, and gave him the "murderer" status. Murderer. The crime that was most scoffed at by justice. Once you're a murderer, you're just slightly better than those child rapists. I explained to him how Adrea Rubalkubara was both.

He gave his insight. Rubalkubara was one of the three High Priests. He lived in the Sancturium, the gothic church on the north-eastern part of town. His room would be accesible from one of the three stained glass windows on the back of the church, five stories high, overlooking the graveyard. Window one, the Father, window two, the Son, window three, the Holy Ghost. He told me that it's best if we went at night, give ourselves time to prepare, gather our instruments and wit. Let the rush slow down.

It was going to be so easy, he said. No one guarded the church, just a few monks working the graveyard shift, maybe four or five at most, standing, making sure no one slipped into the treasury to steal the collection. We didn't even have to pass by them, he said, just go right ahead, not be noticed, and we'll be in Rubalkubara's room in no time, and I could show the High Priest his body parts one by one, cut from his own flesh right on his bed, with Leno watching the door.

Nightfall.

The sweet scent of a dying rain. The head was starting to really smell now in the bag behind my back. Leno and I stalked the shadows on the way to the Sancturium, its gray, gothic architecture intimidating in the silence. Just crickets and my own breathing.

I studied Leno's inventory. Multiple daggers, five, six, seven, all hung around his belt. He had venom-filled darts, three of them. He had a falchion on his right thigh. Well prepared, this kid.

He even gave me a pair of claws, which were like gloves outfitted with three sharp steel blades, a short curve at the tip, so I could wear them and every punch would go through skin, and I'd drag my hand down from where my punch landed, the victim would spill his innards onto the ground.

The entrance of the church was now visible. We crouched behind a tree, and immediately saw four men outside, patrolling the church.

"What the hell," Leno asked me, his voice a subdued whisper. "There wasn't supposed to be people on patrol."

"Dammit. Rubalkubara must've known something was up," I said. The head in my bag weighed heavy, almost laughing. "The assasin," I offered, "she didn't come back to report. Rubalkubara got paranoid she turned on him, or told on him, and ordered protection."

I heared a grunt from Leno that signalled his agreement.

"Well, shall we?" I said. We've gotten this far. My claws were itching to be devirginized.

He smiled. He ran towards the church, two daggers in outstretched hands, flat out like he was gliding in the wind. I watched him dash through the street, and I chased after him. He was like a cat, nimble and accurate, quiet and stealthy. I was like a bear, running after the feline, big and loud and awkward.

The guards saw us coming. We must've looked like idiots, a small, lithe teen and an old, balding father running alongside him. They hollered warnings of "stay backs" and "hold it right theres" but we didn't follow, and they suited their metal knuckles.

Leno stopped a few feet from the guards. They charged at him, probably thinking he was the bigger threat. Leno struck a pose, his left dagger in front of his face, his right one behind his back. He spun to his left, full circle, and caught one guard in the neck, then, without looking up, spun the opposite way and caught the same guard in the same neck. Gurgling sounds came from the guard's throat. This kid was good, I thought to myself.

The remaining three guards came after him, and I charged too. The guard nearest me changed targets, and started punching the air in front of him, a few inches from my face. If one hit me, I was dead meat. The knuckles they wore covered their whole hands, metal, steel, cold. I gave an uppercut, armed with the claw, caught him in his elbow. I tried to pull the claw back, let him bleed, but the curved tip must've caught bone, so when I pulled my fist down, his body had to follow. He swung wildly with his free arm, and all I had to do was raise my other claw and strike him in his cheek, three spikes crushing his skull, and all his movement came to a halt.

It took me a while to lodge the claws free, by the time I was done the total death count included the four guards.

"So much for stealth. They should know by now," Leno told me. I was aware they knew. Let them know, Leno, nothing can save them.

Then a figure appeared in the doorway. He was covered in black robes, a walking staff in tow. Rubalkubara.

He smiled and threw a green bag towards Leno. The bag fell with a sickening thud, the sounds of coins tumbling inside. Leno looked at the bag, looked at Rubalkubara, and with a swift, swift move, threw all three poison darts at me, using one hand.

One caught my chest, right over my heart. One got my belly, just under the ribcage. The other nestled itself on my right shoulder.

"You son of a bitch," I said, smiling at the irony. I felt the toxins work immediately. "You goddamn son of a bitch."

I fell to my knees. I needed to focus. "You shon of a bish," my tongue was going numb, and so was my body. The only dart I was able to pull out was the one on my belly, and I fell to my side, Leno's figure picking up the bag with the little white cross on it. He opened it, checking the contents, and walked towards Rubalkubara. I couldn't hear anything, but Rubalkubara led him inside. The doors of the church closed, and I saw four black figures, more guards, pick up the fallen monks. When all was clear, they lifted me up and carried me to the cemetery behind the church.

The poison wasn't lethal, I assumed. Just paralyzing. I was riding the four guards, knowing this was the end. They unarmed me, taking Leno's claws clean from my hands. My vision started to blur, then the stars receded from the sky, and the black canopy of the heavens fell on my eyes.

"I'm sorry, baby," I was thinking. "Daddy tried so hard, baby."

Daddy tried so hard.


	6. Chapter Five

**_Part Five: And no injustice shall on my hands be._**

When this shit is all over, I'm going to leave this goddamn city. Move to Geffen. Geffen's the only other town besides Prontera that Miki's been to. She must've been four or five, and I took her to the top of the Geffen Tower. She blew spit bubbles, raspberries on my neck, giggling at the wind, the height, the sun. She was getting heavy, I noticed back then.

Sounds. But all I see is black, the nothingness. My eyelids are heavy, it hurts to open them. I squint in the night, my head pounding from the aftereffects of Leno's toxins. I hear my own breathing, I sounded... old. I feel my head sway left and right, like a drunk's own head, although I'm intoxicated with venoms and not alcohol.

I see figures. Black shadows. We're outdoors, the night wind, slighty wet and flavored with dew, tickles my skin. Blurred squares and rectangles register as tombstones and tables in my vision. It takes all my remaining strength to steady my rocking head.

Four more guards. Shit shit shit shit shit. Chains around me, their cold links biting into my skin like metal mosquitoes. I'm chained to a chair, heavy wood, oak or something like that. I see Rubalkubara, that fat muderer. He's playing with something on the table. He's looking at me. He holds the assasin's head up by her hair, and her one eye turned into a stake, piercing my conscience.

"You murdered Alisa, fool. You have brought on yourself the wrath of the Father," Rubalkubara said.

Idiot. "You sent her to kill my daughter and me," I said, wondering why I was defending myself. "She deserved it, asshole."

"SHE DESERVED NOTHING!" I must've said something to tick him off. He threw the head on the graveyard floor, it tumbled and bounced off tombstones. He came close to me, magnificent and royal in his black velvet robes. He stood a foot away from where I was chained. "She was a servant of the Lord! She was fulfilling her purpose, and you, a sinner, cut her head off!"

He continued in this manner, with dramatic gestures of his hands. I deserved to go to hell, I deserved to burn and be Satan's slave, to have my eyes popped out of my head because the Bible demanded an eye for an eye. At least, that's what Rubalkubara was saying.

Then he leaned in to my face. His eyes were inches from mine.

"Your soul is damned, sinner," he said in a low whisper, a pathetic attempt to scare me. His breath grazed my face.

Great, I thought. But I said, "I'm hungry."

With all my strength and resolve, I lunged forward with my upper body. His head was so close to mine, it didn't take long for me to open my mouth and close it over his long, crooked nose. He tried to pull back, screaming, but the weight of me, the chains and the chair made it hard for him.

I was biting his goddamn nose.

I tried to stand up, the best I could while chained to a chair, when I saw the four other guards run to save the priest. He wasn't a warrior, this priest, instead of jabbing me at my exposed belly, he was flailing his arms like a chicken. He once tried to pull my head from his, but since I wouldn't release any pressure on my jaw, he must've felt like he was pulling his nose from his face.

The guards came and started whacking at me with their maces. No way in hell would I release Rubalkubara's nose. He was crying already, asking his God for mercy. Mercy. There is no God here, priest, just you, me, and my mouth over that lump of bleeding flesh on your head.

The chair's back blocked a lot of the maces coming at me. I was standing hunchbacked, using the chair as a shield from the guards' swings. A few hits got through, but the one that counted was the one that landed behind my neck, the tip of my spine.

I had to release Rubalkubara. He staggered backward, holding his hands over his face, crying, screaming. He ordered the guards to finish me. I lunged once again for him. Forget everyone else.

My head caught him in his belly and we tumbled on the graveyard's floor. I bit into his robe and rolled, dragging him with me as I turned left, right, just so that the monks won't have a clear shot. If they swung their maces, they could hit the priest, if not, there was always the chair.

The rolling seemed to loosen my chains. Damn, I won't die after all. Well, at least not without a fight. I continued rolling. My right arm...

Rubalkubara slipped out of his robes and he forced himself up, faced covered in blood. His deformed nose now off-center. I laughed. Great. A naked preacher and four maces on their way to beat the living hell out of you. The stuff of nightmares.

One monk came at me and swung down hard with his mace. He must've been only twenty, by the look in his surprised eyes when my right hand wormed itself free from the chains and caught the mace in mid-swing.

I just had to smile.

It's like the tables turned. My lips were bleeding from biting off some of Rubalkubara's nose, and I went berserk, the mace in my possesion slowly turned red as it was, in my hands, as lethal as a nail to the wrist.

The mace was dented after crushing four skulls. I was worn out, but I managed to beat the guards senseless. During the battle, Rubalkubara ran towards the Sancturium, using the graveyard entrance that connects the cemetery to the church.

I followed, broke the lock on the door, walked right through. No more guards, I noticed. The entrance led to a long, shadowy hallway, and I could see Rubalkubara in the end of it. But he wasn't alone.

He held in front of him, and I couldn't believe it, a child.

Rubalkubara held the boy, who's back was facing him, on his shoulders. "Be nice to my boy, sinner," he told me, "Don't teach him your Satanic ways."

There was something wrong. The boy, around twelve years of age, had eyes the color of eggwhites left out for a week. His skin was gray, and his bones showed through. He was naked, the only clothing he had were strips of leather on his arms. And his hands... his hands... were missing. Where the palms should be stood a metal triangle, sharp at the edge. What the hell is this?

Rubalkubara spun the boy around to face him, and the priest knelt in front of the child. "Now, my son.. see that man?" Rubalkubara said, his hands still resting on the boy's shoulders. "He's Satan's servant. Send him back to hell, my beautiful boy."

They locked lips. I felt frozen where I stood, my eyes the witness for this sick display of perversion.

Rubalkubara broke the kiss. "Yes, Father," the boy said, his voice so innocent, an unassuming crystal child's voice, unfit for his gray demeanor. Rubalkubara turned, and ran away, into the far end of the hallway, leaving the boy and myself in the dim corridor.

"What are you?" I ask, gripping the dented mace in my hand tight.

"I am hate, sinner," he said in his haunting boy voice, not moving from where Rubalkubara left him.

"I am pain.

I am sorrow.

I am injustice."

He graced me with a smile. Injustice is smiling at me.


	7. Chapter Six

**_PART SIX: It is not meet to take the children's bread, and toss it to the dogs._**

There was no way Rubalkubara was going to entrust a child to kill me. But, then again, this was no ordinary child.

His eyes glared, a pearl-white pair of lifeless flesh in their sockets. He was thin, and appeared as if he was deprived of sunlight and food. He walked, but not towards me. He walked from side to side, sizing me up, the blades on the edge of hands leaving scratch marks on the walls where he touched and dragged them.

I stood away, watching the kid. I can't fight a child. I'd kill him. I'd be doing the same thing that brought me here in the first place.

"Father says you're a sinner. I must not yoke myself with unbelievers," the child told me.

I couldn't believe how such a powerful voice radiated from a kid like this. "Your father is cruel. Don't listen to him, kid," I said, like he'd actually listen to me.

He looked unphased by the comment. "My Father loves me, sinner. He saved me from Hell," he replied, casually. The blades grafted into his hands were creating screeching sounds on the hallway's walls, a high, metal-on-concrete vibrato that sent tremors through my spine.

The kid has been brainwashed, I thought. Rubalkubara took the Bible's teachings and truths, twisted and tore them to suit his greed and lust. This abused kid was proof of that.

"I am injustice, sinner, and I was forgiven by Father," the kid continued, "You should really get to know Father, sinner. He can cleanse you of your sins."

I will not kill a clueless child. Forget it. I had to think of another way besides this, or I'd just let him kill me if we draw swords, I will not avenge or justify Miki's death by taking someone else's kid.

"He took me in when I was unworthy, washed me in his love. He saved my life," the kid said.

I could use this. Keep him talking, break his spirit, and save his body. "How did you find Father?" I asked. Keep it clean, easy, I told myself.

The kid kept drawing on the hallway walls with his hand-blades. "He found me, he trained me to be his apparentice acolyte. He guided me," he said, "and I failed him. But he forgave me, and soon I will be with God in Heaven."

Poor thing, blinded by promises, used, abused, broken. "How did you fail him?" I just had to ask.

"I touched myself, I sold my body to Satan's tempations," the child replied, still marking the walls. "He cut my hands off, because the Bible said you must. Now I'm clean, and only Father can touch me, because he has life in hands."

More scratching sounds on the walls. Rubalkubara, what are you up to?

It hit me. Miki. She was going to be an acolyte too, she wanted to be one. We never did sign up, but then...

I was trying to remeber. We went to the church to have her blessed. Mother what's-her-name... Mathilda. That's it. And Yosuke, they met Miki. They said she'll make a fine acolyte. They looked her over, and asked me to have her ready before she turned twelve. Miki was so excited..

Then they said they'd place her under Rubalkubara's training. How the hell could I forget? I'm getting old. **He knew who he killed.**

"Listen, kid, I had a daughter who wanted to be an acolyte too. Your father," I said, staggering the words out of my mouth, "he killed my daughter. I need your help to find out why."

A tear flowed down his eye. "She wasn't the first. There's been a lot. Father only trains boys. He kills off girls, sinner, before he trains them. He's going to kill Mathilda too. He says only men should serve God," the boy said. He was volunteering information. There was still some human in him. "Women are evil creatures, sinner. They eat the fruit of the tree, they leave you when you love them. Father said boys should only love boys as not to be hurt."

I was sick to my stomach. The perversity he fed to his trainees... how many have been blinded by Rubalkubara?

"Are there.. other trainees.. that failed him?" I asked.

He looked at me. His hand stopped marking the walls, and he walked down the hallway, slow and captivated. "Down the hall, there are many of us. He visits us sometimes, to show us he still loves us. But we know he loves the good students more."

"He doesn't love you at all, kid," I said. "You know it. Show me the rest of the trainees, we can still get out of here." I was going to bust this thing wide open.

"He ordered me to kill you, sinner," he said, voice breaking. I was throwing the truth at him, and it was coming at him, painful and real and tangible.

I dropped the mace. I told him, if he didn't believe me, that he should go ahead and kill me. I wasn't going to hurt a kid, I said. "I'm not like Rubalkubara."

His head hung low. His arms lay listless on his side, and he stood shaking. "I am injustice..." he said, his voice now turning into a leathery rasp. "Nothing can save me."

He took his hand-blades and stabbed himself in his stomach. He pulled it out, and yellow and red spilled out. "My Father doesn't really love me at all," he said, muffling his cries. "Let me die, sinner," he said, "Injustice is tired of being used."

I couldn't watch as the kid opened his eyes to reality. The truth was pulled from under him, and the columns that held his world came down, crushing him, a cold, heartless reality, and he couldn't take it. I didn't blame him.

The hallway was now clear, but it felt like there was a lot more trouble if I walked through it.


	8. Chapter 7

**_Part Seven: Gnashing of teeth._**

The hallway was alive, calling out to me. "Regan," it would say, "walk my floors, follow that bastard."

I dragged Injustice to the hall's side, instead of leaving him lying in the center like some displayed abnormality on a freak show. I took my shirt off and lay it on him, brushing the hair off his face, parting it in a way that it fell on his side. This boy's suicide will forever be engraved as one of the greatest tragedies ever told. The last few minutes of his life was nothing but the realization of the fact that his god has betrayed him – kissed him on the cheek like Judas kissed Jesus, sold him to the world to be crucified and hung like a criminal. This boy was no criminal. He was a criminal's masterpiece.

Miki. Injustice. I've doubled the reasons to hunt you down like the rat you are, Rubalkubara. I'm your walking ticket to that Hell you so badly preach against. Your blood will stain my hands, and there will be no mercy when I find my fingers around your throat.

I pick up the dented mace, walk down the corridor where I last saw Rubalkubara turn. It's a dark, moss-scented hallway, nothing but shadows and ghosts and a heavy silence occupying the space. This was what this Sancturium was, a deep well of deceit and lies fronted by a church and Christ and love.

I come at a door, slightly open. I pushed it, and there he was, donning another robe from his regal, brown-red armoire, a makeshift bandage around his head, covering his nose.

"Steven, is that you my beautiful boy? Come out of the shadows so Father can see you," he said, and through the angle I created where I was, I knew he couldn't see me. "Are you hurt, my child? Is the sinner with his master now?"

I studied the room from where I stood. It was small, a bed, a closet, a desk, the priest's uniform scapular hanging on a coat rack by the desk. Steven, I thought. The first martyr. The injustice.

"Forgive yourself, Father," I said, with no sarcasm in my voice, just brutal honesty and hate and anger, "for you know not what the hell you've done."

He turned around, shocked, and inched towards the window. "You monster. You killed Steven! How could you? A child of the Lord! YOU WILL BURN IN HELL, SINNER!" he cried. I brushed it off me.

"I didn't kill him, priest," I replied, taking my time on making my way to him, palming the mace in my hand. I knew he was going for the window. "You killed him. Your lies and abuse pushed him over the cliff."

He smiled at me. "Did he cry sinner? Did he cry like your daughter, like a girl? Did he act like a girl? If I know Steven, he'd cry… he cries whenever he hurts. I like the way he cries. Did you enjoy it, sinner?"

I couldn't believe it. I will not answer, I will not give Rubalkubara the twisted satisfaction of staining Steven's memory with a lustful finality.

Pervert. I couldn't help it. I took two strides and was halfway across the room, he ran towards the window, but I caught him by the neck of his robe. He laughed, and I broke his right arm with the mace.

His scream pierced the night.

In the name of sweet revenge, I drew the mace as high as I could, and brought it down forcefully on his right shoulder. He crashed to the floor, twisting and writhing, shouting "God, save me" and other things that I'd make sure fell on deaf ears.

He stopped his hysterics. He looked up and asked, "If you're doing this for justice, you're far too late."

I smiled. I'm not doing it for justice. I'm doing it for Miki.

The mace caught him in his chest, upper left, near the shoulder blade.

I'm doing it for Injustice.

My boot met his belly, and he spat out thick, bubbling blood.

I'm doing it for fun.

A letter-opener on his desk went through his thigh, and I dragged it up, tearing flesh and muscle. I muffled his screams by covering his face in the bed's quilt, and holding a pillow over the sheets. He was performing some sort of chant, an incantation, probably to exorcise the living hell out of me. But it won't work. I've got a lot of hell in me.

I was tired by the time it was over. I was a waterfall of blood. I staggered towards the bathroom, a door connected to Rubalkubara's quarters. I dipped my hands in a bucket of water and let the cool wetness purify me. I walked out of the bathroom, and I spat on Rubalkubara's body.

"By the way," I said, "my daughter never cried."

I'm a wanted man now, and I bet people heard him scream. I better get something on my side, but all I have is a dead kid's body and the corpse of a fat perverted priest, his blood covering my skin.

I staggered out of his room. I remember Steven's words.

"Down the hall, there are many of us."

If I'm going down anyway, might as well make the trip worthwhile.


	9. Chapter Eight

**_Part Eight: In the valley of the shadow of death._**

My fingers crawled the hallway's walls, my steps unsure in the dark. Down the hall, Stephen said. So down the hall I went.

The hall twisted, turned, like a snake in the holy Sancturium. I was inside the snake, hearing it breathe, hearing its hisses radiate through the heavy, cruel silence. My fingers on the wall found a break, the hinges of a door.

My heart stopped. From under the door itself, a flickering light was evident. Shadows blocked the glow every now and then, the proof of movement behind the wood.

My hand found the knob, and I pushed. The door swung open. My eyes scanned what my mind couldn't believe: children, boys, strapped to the walls by leather and metal chains, nude, mute. They were alive, I could tell by the rhythm of their chests. They were alive, but none of them looked up. They didn't hear me.

I ran towards the first kid, and tugged at his chains. He has been whipped, I see, by the red marks on his pale gray skin. The scent of semen attacked my nose, and I couldn't bear to imagine what went on in this torture room. My eyes watered when the first chain broke, and his hand came free. It slumped down, defeated, tired, aged. These boys have grown up in a world of hatred and lust, their dreams of priesthood overrun by a lustful madman, a heretic, a hypocrite.

The boy looked up at me while I was tugging at his other arm.

"You're not Father," he said, in a sweet tone, "You're not supposed to be here."

I didn't reply. I was weakened from the murder of Rubalkubara, the fight with the four monks, and from Leno's toxins, but the sight of twenty children, and the weight of their pain, gave me a renewed stone resolve. My arms found the strength to pull the other chain from the cement wall. The kid crashed to the floor.

"Wait here, kid," I said. I couldn't pull all the chains of all the children, not in my condition. My best bet would be to take this kid outside, call for help from the Knights, but they were probably on their way, if anyone heard Rubalkubara scream.

I reached for the kid's hand, I wanted to help him up and we'd blow this hellhole and wait for help to come. If the Knights would arrest me, the kid would explain it all. Then we'd rescue the rest of the children, and there'd be puppies and rainbows and cookies for everyone.

How many times in a day could I be wrong?

My hand was inches from his, when an arrow struck my palm, dead-center. Shit.

The spray of blood glistened in the wall. My head cocked at the direction of the arrow, and my lips whispered, "Leno."

Leno lowered his bow. "Old man," he returned my greeting, "Three hits of sidewinder concentrate, and you're up and about already, saving other people's rejects," he motioned to the kid. "You know, with you taking out the priest, I can help myself to whatever's in the treasury."

"You didn't have to shoot me for that, backstabber," I said, bitterness obvious in my tone. I looked at the kid, told him not to be scared.

"I'm not scared," came the reply.

"Well, you look scary," said Leno, unsheathing his falchion. He sat down, cocky and proud, on a desk littered with surgical tools, blood staining the instruments, scratch marks on the table, a candelabra covered in wax holding seven candles, the source of the light in the room. It was the first time my eyes took in the room – a guillotine stands erect in the center, a mattress on the floor, chains, whips, a chair, keys, the surgical table, boys chained to the cement walls.

"Anyway, I couldn't have you badmouth me when you return to the bar, can I?" Leno said, now waving the falchion in front of my face.

"If you did steal the treasury, you'd never need to do a contract again," I countered.

"Yes. But then, my reflexes would be shot. So, how do you want to go? I see a lot of beauties in this room," he said.

I broke the arrow's wood an inch from my hand, and pushed it through so it would topple to the floor. I covered the wound with a tattered towel on the floor. I tied the knot, and my bleeding stopped.

Leno was fiddling with the surgical tools on the table. "I wonder what Rubalkubara uses these for. Tell me what he does with all this shit, kid," Leno said, his back turned to us.

"He cuts us and puts stuff in us sometimes. If we're bad," the child replied without hesitating. The other children are now stirring, their thin bodies frail, weak, cold. Heads turned to the sound of tinkling metal, Leno's fingers on the surgeon's tools. "Some of us, he cuts out or hands and puts knives or scissors on it."

"Whoa," Leno said, more out of attempt than surprise, "What a creep. I saw what you did to him, Regan. Quality stuff."

I held my broken palm in the opposite hand. I'm too tired to fight. Kill me, Leno, get it over with.

He turned around with a small, sharp knife in his hand, the edge of which was curved, with miniature saw-like teeth.

My legs pushed me up, my back using the wall as a guide so I stand up straight, and not sideways.

He thrust the blade and caught me upper left chest. My back slammed on the wall. My bad hand grabbed his shirt, and I pulled him towards me. I groped for his daggers, and I found one on his belt. I used my good hand to stab him in his side, and I didn't let go of him.

He grunted in pain, but pulled the knife on my shoulder and thrust it again. It caught me once more. I countered by doing the same, pulling the blade out and piercing in him a new opening, still near his side.

We continued knifing each other.

As a Knight, you were trained to think defense first. But I'm old, there was no point in dodging or saving myself anymore. Miki was my reason for living. She's gone now, and I didn't fail her after all.

Leno was the first to fall. He took a few steps backward, then toppled to floor. The knife he held in his hand, which pierced my chest and arms numerous times, rattled on the floor. I could still hear him breathe, but I knew he was dying.

I dropped too, leaning on the wall.

I was sitting on our puddle of blood, and the kid crawled up to me.

"Are we safe now? Can we leave?" he asked me, "I can look for the keys and unlock all our chains, mister."

I looked in his eyes. There was something stirring in him – the excitement of freedom from years of chains and whips and abuse. I nodded. Go have fun, kid. Forget all this happened.

"Thanks, mister," he said, "hey, can I ask what your name is?"

I smiled the best smile I could. "Regan Tyriem. You?"

He smiled back, then headed for the door, the gate to freedom. "I forget my real name. Father named me Rybio."

I saw him walk down the hallway, in search of the keys. My last thoughts wandered on Miki, and Jaclyn. My daughter, my wife, taken from me, like a thief in the night. There were no words to express how happy I was to have the assurance that I avenged them, and that I would join them in Heaven. Because if there was a Heaven, there's no one else who deserved it more than my beautiful Miki and beloved Jaclyn.

Me? God decides that.

Amen, I thought. Amen.


End file.
